5 ms·

I try to avoid using Orwellian terms.

• throwaway729 10y ago
  What's Orwellian about "holocaust denier"? 1984 is in very large part about historical revisionism. If anything, the term "holocaust denier" is the opposite of Orwellian, in that it specifically stigmatizes revisionism.
  • MK999 10y ago
    It stigmatizes inquiry, it's shorthand for 'heretic', pariah.
    • tallanvor 10y ago
      I'm sorry, but calling a holocaust denier a denier doesn't stigmatize inquiry. There is no "both sides" here. The holocaust is a fact, documented by many first person accounts on both sides as well as physical evidence, much of which can be experienced by the remains of several of the camps. You could debate some of the numbers - was it at the lower end of the estimate or the higher end, but pretending that there is any legitimate reason to claim that the holocaust didn't happen is denying fact.
      • reader5000 10y ago
        Yes it does. Does Amazon remove "the earth is flat" books? Anything is up for discussion. Does Amazon remove "humans should be able to have sex with animals" books? I'm sure theres at least a few. Thats the principle of free speech. Claiming "heresy" and lashing out violently is what children do. You dont have to buy the book.
  • anonemouse145 10y ago
    For the down vote happy people: an example is that some people advocate for the fact that many victims of the Holocaust were non-Jewish, and that the association of the Holocaust with "anti-Semitic" fails to represent all the other groups who were also targeted (black people, gypsies, homosexuals...) In our current political climate, those advocates are called antisemitic bigots and Holocaust deniers along with ISIS who really do deny the Holocaust ever happened (or worse, they think it should continue). You're also called a bigot if you point out that most people conflate the total number of people who died in the Holocaust with the number of Jewish people who died in the Holocaust. They're not the same number, and separating them doesn't trivialize either of them. But our political climate doesn't accept nuance. You either back the popular narrative, or you're a bigot.
    • WillPostForFood 10y ago
      I call BS on this. I looked at the list of books removed by Amazon, and they are straight up Holocaust denial (e.g., The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, The Myth of the Six Million, The Holocaust Hoax Exposed). I feel dirtied just googling that shit.
    • doktrin 10y ago
      > many victims of the Holocaust were non-Jewish, and that the association of the Holocaust with "anti-Semitic" fails to represent all the other groups who were also targeted ... In our current political climate, those advocates are called antisemitic bigots and Holocaust deniers along with ISIS > You're also called a bigot if you point out that most people conflate the total number of people who died in the Holocaust with the number of Jewish people who died in the Holocaust. Can you substantiate this? Maybe I'm just socially blind, but I've never seen or heard of anyone labeled a bigot just for citing statistics. I mean, the Wikipedia page on holocaust victims literally features a big ass pie chart with the demographic breakdown and nobody seems to be contesting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims tbh I think you're just tossing red herrings around in the air
      • mcguire 10y ago
        Just for completeness, the caption includes, "1. Definitions of the Holocaust vary; some include only Jewish victims, and this piechart includes other victims of Nazi persecution."
    • grigjd3 10y ago
      My history books from school reported on the inclusions of gypsies and gays in the Holocaust without being labelled holocaust denial. This sounds like a red herring.
    • dang 10y ago
      Please don't perpetuate ideological flamewars on HN.